Re: heimdal on GNU HURD

[Jacques A. Vidrine]

On Sat, Sep 29, 2001 at 12:40:12PM -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> "Jacques A. Vidrine" <n@nectar.com> writes:
> 
> > If the  Hurd will  not define  MAXHOSTNAMELEN nor  HOST_NAME_MAX, then
> > indeed there really isn't a good  choice.  We'd have to use sysconf or
> > _POSIX_HOST_NAME_MAX  or what  we `know'  _POSIX_HOST_NAME_MAX to  be.
> > I think it's a pity.
> 
> You seriously think this is better?  You don't care at all about
> providing the best system for users you can?  Why would you
> deliberately choose an inferior solution?

Are  referring to  the fact  that  I would  prefer to  use a  manifest
constant versus  sysconf or looping until  a fit is found?   Clearly I
don't think that is an inferior solution, but rather a practical one.

Flame on if you like, but we simply disagree.

> >  = On that  same set of  systems, where  stupidly long host  names are
> >    used, calling  xgethostname is expensive because  the function does
> >    not keep track of how much memory it needed last time.
> 
> Oh please!  Call it once.  

You  can't just  call  it once;  the hostname  can  change during  the
application's run.

> You really think this is a serious cost in
> a program that is doing lots of encryption??

No, I don't -- I just think it is a bug.  One which is easy to fix for
the single-threaded case.

> It's not a mistake, it's a design principle: make nothing limited that
> doesn't need to be.
> 
> That is also a GNU design principle.
> 
> We are trying to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past rather than
> slavishly repeating them.

As I said in an earlier message,  I appreciate that.  I also happen to
believe that it has been misapplied here.

Cheers,
-- 
Jacques A. Vidrine <n@nectar.com>                   http://www.nectar.com/
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